Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Thursday that she will skip next month’s Michigan Democratic Party convention because she fears being harassed, adding another flashpoint to a party increasingly divided over Israel and antisemitism during a bitter U.S. Senate primary. Speaking during a roundtable discussion with Jewish leaders and community members, Nessel said she no longer feels safe attending the party’s August 29 convention in Lansing after what she described as repeated harassment. “I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.” Nessel also criticized Democratic Party leadership for failing to adequately respond to concerns she said she had repeatedly raised about individuals who have targeted her, warning that antisemitism on the political Left has become a growing problem within the party. “I will speak as a member of the Democratic Party here in Michigan, that some things have changed,” Nessel said. “This cannot continue, and the fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened, and certainly without people carrying out those threats.” Her comments come as Michigan Democrats are engaged in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate primaries, with the party’s ideological divide over Israel increasingly spilling into public view. Left-wing candidate Abdul El-Sayed has embraced some of the Democratic Party’s most vocal anti-Israel activists during the campaign, including campaigning with far-Left political streamer Hasan Piker. Third Way, a center-left think tank, condemned the partnership, calling Piker “anti-American, anti-women, anti-western and antisemitic” and arguing he should be “pushed to the fringe, not welcomed onto the stage.” El-Sayed dismissed the criticism in an interview with Michigan Advance, portraying it as an attack from establishment Democrats and “corporate-funded think tanks.” Former Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow has also acknowledged antisemitism within the Democratic Party, recounting an incident at the Democratic National Convention in which, she said, an attendee shouted an antisemitic slur at her Jewish husband while he was walking with their five-year-old daughter. “There is,” McMorrow replied when asked whether antisemitism was a problem within the party. “That is terrifying,” she added. El-Sayed, by contrast, argued that antisemitism and Islamophobia both stem from “the scourge of white supremacy” before pivoting to criticism of U.S. support for Israel. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” El-Sayed said. “It should not mean that we allow our money to subsidize apartheid and genocide.” Responding to Nessel’s decision not to attend the convention, Michigan Democratic Party spokesman Derrick Honeyman said the party remains committed to ensuring the gathering is safe for all attendees. “We reject antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hateful conduct,” Honeyman said. “We are working diligently with stakeholders, elected officials, and party membership to prepare for our August convention and look forward to welcoming Michigan Democrats to the Lansing Center on August 29.”